★★★★★ Runtime: 70 minutes (no intermission) Availability: Occasionally re-released in cinemas via NT Live; available for streaming on platforms like Amazon Prime (as of 2025, check regional availability) and for digital rental/purchase. “I want to tell you a love story. It’s about a girl who lost her best friend, and she just wanted to be loved. And she tried everything. And then she stopped.” — Fleabag
Introduction When Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s one-woman play Fleabag premiered at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2013, few could have predicted the cultural phenomenon it would become. By the time it transferred to London’s Soho Theatre and then to New York, it had already garnered critical acclaim. But it was the 2019 National Theatre Live (NT Live) filmed performance—captured during its West End run at Wyndham’s Theatre—that preserved this raw, hilarious, and devastating piece of theatre for a global audience. fleabag -nt live-
More importantly, the NT Live recording ensured that a generation of theatre-goers who could not afford West End tickets or travel to London could witness Waller-Bridge’s original performance. It democratized access to a piece of theatrical history. The television series is a masterpiece of adaptation, expanding the world and deepening the characters. But the stage Fleabag is the primal scream from which the show was born. It is leaner, meaner, and more claustrophobic. Without the Hot Priest, without the guinea pig café’s charming aesthetic, without Olivia Colman’s scene-stealing stepmother, we are left alone in a room with a woman who is falling apart. And she tried everything
And that is exactly where Waller-Bridge wants us. But it was the 2019 National Theatre Live
Waller-Bridge, as the titular “Fleabag” (she is never given another name), performs a relentless 70-minute sprint through her character’s life. She plays not only herself but also her deceased best friend Boo, her uptight sister Claire, her emotionally stunted father, and various lovers—shifting between them with lightning-quick physical adjustments and vocal changes. The audience becomes her confidant, her therapist, and her reluctant voyeur. The defining feature of both the stage play and the TV series is Fleabag’s direct address to the audience. However, on stage, this device is even more potent. There is no edit, no cutaway. Waller-Bridge’s character looks us dead in the eye, smirking after a disastrous sexual encounter, or holding our gaze as she lies to her family.